Overview
Zagara is a Zerg commander who seems to embrace the concept of swarming. Her strength mainly comes from production of lots of throw-away units (save for one type) and overrunning enemies with sheer numbers and attrition. She may seem weak at lower levels, but gains some upgrades as levels progress to make her a powerhouse in the early game and onward.
Units
Zagara: your hero unit. Like Kerrigan, she hatches from your main hatchery after a certain time, or after 1 minute after being killed. She has the following abilities:
- Summon banelings (50 energy, 10 second cooldown): spawns a set of banelings that travel in a straight line for a certain distance. They will explode on contact with the first enemy they touch.
- Summon hunter killers (60 energy, 30 second cooldown): spawns a set of beefed up hydralisks that last for 20 seconds. They can serve as your main anti-air.
- Mass Frenzy (25 energy, 120 second cooldown): grants all units 15% increased attack speed for 15 seconds. Global wide buff too. Very nice.
- Infested Drop (300 second cooldown): call down a force of 10 roaches which do 50 damage on impact. Your ultimate skill if you will. The roaches last 30 seconds.
Zergling: your basic light melee unit. Can be upgraded later to swarmlings that hatch in triplets and build extremely quickly.
Baneling: your suicide bomber morphed from zerglings. Already somewhat powerful like in multiplayer, and can get upgrades to make them more effective, as well as the splitter strain to get more damage out of them. There's also another upgrade that gives you them for free!
Abberation: a large anti-armor unit that slaps around its target. It also allows other Zerg units to walk under them similar to how Colossi do so.
Scourge: anti-air units that in my opinion, should have stayed in multiplayer. Think flying banelings, but you need to upgrade them to do splash. They are gas intensive (75 gas for a pair), but fortunately there's a fix for that...
Corruptor: the other anti-air option. You really shouldn't have to build these, as scourge should be enough.
Initial Traits and Abilities
- You get to control Zagara on the battlefield, who comes with her own set of unique abilities.
Level Upgrades
1) Relentless Swarmer: drones hatch in pairs and cost only 1/2 the supply. Her units also seem to morph a little faster, and cost a little bit less than Kerrigan (and any future potential Zerg commanders). However, to balance this, her supply cap is 100. At lower levels, that cap really sucks, but is in place because she gets really strong later on.
2) Inftested Drop: allows Zagara to drop a bunch of roaches wherever she pleases. A power spike for sure since it is a new calldown ability, perfect for securing objectives or defending a wave.
3) Inject Larvae: doubles the amount of larvae produced from the queen's inject larvae ability. Another power spike, since you need a lot less injects to get the needed amount of larva for production. Also frees up time for creep tumors, since you'll be hard pressed to use all of your extra larvae early on.
4) Scourge Upgrade Cache: unlocks researchable upgrades for the scourge. The reduced cost upgrade is all but mandatory; the main drawback of massing up scourge was their gas cost, and this severely reduces that. The splash damange upgrade is more gravy than anything else. This alone should allow you to never morph corruptors ever again.
5) Bile Launcher: allows you to morph bile launchers, a defensive structure that must be manually used. They are theoretically great for defensive missions, though I do not use them. They do AoE damage to air and ground alike, so they have potential in missions like Temple of the Past.
6) Zergling Upgrade Cache: unlocks extra upgrades for the Zergling. The same as Kerrigan's version: you can add 10 health to zerglings, and give them the ability to reduce their target's armor to 0 for a short while. Can't complain really since after the mid game, you should have excess resources.
7) Baneling Nest: Birthing Chamber: baneling nests automatically spawn up to 4 banelings at a time at set intervals. Another big power spike, as it allows you to defend initial waves of enemies if you adjust your build order to get a baneling nest ASAP. Free units that explode!
8) Incubate Banelings: if you build Aberrations, this is for you. When they die, you get two banelings to pop out from their corpses. More free damage, and its great when you consider that Aberrations are melee units that are always near their target.
9) Evolution Chamber Upgrade Cache: unlocks upgrades at the evo chamber. One gives Zagara's basic attack some AoE, and the other grants Aberrations the ability to give 2 armor to any unit underneath it. The former is pretty good when you rely on Zagara for anti-air, and the latter is ok.
10) Darken the Skies: doubles the amount of roaches that spawn when you use infested drop. Just makes the ability twice as strong. Not much else to say.
11) Baneling Nest Upgrade Cache: allows researching increased blast radius and increased primary target damage for banelings. Both are excellent with baneling heavy compositions, which isn't that uncommon when the nest spawns them automatically and with another upgrade which makes zergling production a lot better.
12) Zergling Evolution: Swarmling: zerglings are permanently upgraded to the swarmling. This variant spawns in a set of 3 instead of 2, but they still cost 1/2 supply each. Still, 3 zerglings per egg for 50 minerals is a steal. Oh, and the morph time is incredibly fast. A power spike I'd say: you can mass a force much faster and reinforce quickly as well. Zerglings under Zagara are no joke.
13) Bile Launcher Upgrade Cache: allows researchable upgrades for Bile Launchers for increased attack radius and shorter cooldown of use. Can't comment on them since I don't use bile launchers.
14) Baneling Evolution: Splitter: banelings are now Splitters from the HotS campaign. That is, you get two smaller banelings when a baneling explodes. Each smaller one does a small damage, but you get 2 per dead baneling, and its still even more free damage. I wouldn't call it a power spike, but a bump in power nonetheless. It's totally free of charge too.
15) Broodmother: enhances Zagara's initial abilities. Both cost 50% less, and spawn 50% more units. In essence, makes Zagara a lot stronger, and easier to get those annoying achievements.
Pointers
- Do you like swarming the opposition with tons of throwaway units? If so, then Zagara is for you. Zerglings, banelings, and scourge with a few Aberrations sprinkled in should cover all of your bases.
- Drones cost 75 minerals to morph a pair. So when describing builds with her, it's a little different than usual. My opener does go 11 pool and gas, then bane nest at 50 gas. At 11 supply you have 22 workers, and should be able to stop worker production for the most part (I find 14/21 workers on minerals the main the most you need there).
- You should be able to handle initial waves with just zerglings and banelings. Afterwrads, Zagara will be available to take care of future waves. Note that her anti-air is limited, and usually relies on her hunter killers to handle it. Keep that in mind; you may want to tell your teammate to help out with anti-air if it is necessary until you get mass up a scourge fleet.
- My main strategy usually revolves around massing up tons of zerglings, eventually getting in 6-8 aberrations into the mix. Sometimes I morph banelings if I really need them against T or Z, but the free ones from the baneling nest usually suffice.
- Since you can morph a lot of drones, you could assist in defenses with lots of structures, even the bile launcher. If your macro is on point, you'll find yourself swimming in resources at the supply cap. Swarmings spawn in triplets, but cost 1.5 supply per egg.
- You can usually get to hive tech rather quickly, as there isn't anything really blocking you from going there. It's mainly just to unlock upgrades. If you find yourself floating a lot of minerals, make more hatcheries (you don't need to have queens at your extra hatcheries. It will make reinforcing your army a lot easier.
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